Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Carta marina, a wallmap of w:Scandinavia, by Olaus Magnus.The caption reads : Marine
map and Description of the Northern Lands and of their Marvels, most
carefully drawn up at Venice in the year 1539 through the generous
assistance of the Most Honourable Lord Hieronymo Quirino.

The creatures depicted on land in the 16th-century Carta Marina are
not particularly unusual: the map's lands contain knights on horseback,
wild boars and bears climbing trees.
The west side of the map, however,
shows a much more fanciful plethora of wildlife.
Cartographer Olaus Magnus created the Carta Marina while staying in
Rome, between the years 1527 and 1539.
However, Magnus was originally
from Sweden, and chose to depict the Nordic countries in his map.
The
Carta Marina was one of the most precise depictions of any part of
Europe at the time—although its portrayal of the oceans was not quite as
accurate.
The northern seas on the map are filled to the brim with all kinds of
aquatic monsters.
Some maps of the era depicted dragons to
metaphorically indicate uncertainties or dangers in a region.
But the
Carta Marina's mythological sea creatures were thought to really exist
at the time Magnus drew them.
He even identified each creature in the
map's key.
You can take a closer look at some of them below.

Unsuspecting sailors cook a meal on a sea monster off the coast of Iceland.

Just beneath Iceland, the Carta Marina offers up a curious sight: a
sailor aboard a ship, playing the trumpet for two sea monsters.
The
sounds, along with the empty barrels shown, could have been a futile
attempt to scare away the attacking beasts.

A vividly red sea serpent envelops a ship that came too close for comfort.